fitness

My training goal for 2018 is to have two ambulatory dogs. I already had Mia on anti-inflammatories and acupuncture when Leo needed TPLO surgery in November. I already had the greatest dog step in the world for the car*, and prophetically had trained Leo to use it.

Mia got her own walks for a few days when Leo wasn’t allowed, but he was putting weight on his injured leg immediately after surgery, so he was ready for short walks. And for several weeks, Leo’s prescribed slow, short walks worked out great for Mia.

Now that’s he’s back to his old self, it’s challenging to walk both dogs together by myself. Leo wants to walk faster, and probably should for his ongoing physical therapy. I accommodate this somewhat by attaching Mia to my belt via an 8-foot leash, while Leo forges ahead on his Freedom harness with the leash attached in front and back. There’s still some tangling, and the sense that Mia is getting dragged along faster than she wants to go.

Last night, while on a ball field well away from traffic, I unhooked Mia’s leash, thinking she could trail as far behind us as she needed, but nope, she stayed within about 8 feet anyway.

Today I took her on her own walk, and let her pick the pace.

*I cannot believe I didn’t blog about the Pet Loader. This video was shot a week before Leo hurt himself.

This post is part of the Positive Pet Training Blog Hop. This month’s theme is training goals, but all positive training posts are welcome. The Hop is open until Sunday. Join Wag ‘n Woof Pets, Tenacious Little Terrier, and Travels with Barley each month to share positive training posts, starting on the first Monday of the month and lasting all week.

Gracie is a total wiggle butt/snuggle bug available at the Humane Society of Skagit Valley. At least she was the last time I was there, which was May 22 … !

What happened to me there, and the reason I haven’t been back yet is not her fault, but because of her breed, even though she’s a very petite pittie, the news media is bound to sensationalize it and place the blame on her.

All right. Here it is. I fell down.

Somebody that I told my story to, before I even told him how I got hurt, before he knew it happened while walking a dog, asked “Did your dog pull you down?”

Seriously, I swear. No.

I was walking Gracie between a fenced play yard and a berm. The ground was uneven; I think I was walking on fist-sized gravel. Smooth rocks. I’ve walked Gracie before and she is flawless on leash. A larger dog was in the yard, one I haven’t walked because his sign says he’s not available because he’s “working on his manners.” He raced toward the fence and I thought very calmly, What a great opportunity to see if Gracie is at all reactive to other dogs.

And then I went down. It is a testament to both dogs that I don’t even remember what they did. I’m pretty sure Gracie just stood there attached to me via leash. The other dog didn’t even bark.

I had simply tripped over my own feet, and when I landed on my left shoulder, the wind was knocked out of me.

That’s a phrase I’ve heard a lot – “wind knocked out” – and now I understand what it means. I couldn’t breathe. Specifically, I felt like I couldn’t get air out. I also sprained my right thumb.

My thoughts at the moment: I’m hurt. I’m hurt. No… I seem to be okay. Nothing broken. No scrapes. No one saw; thank god! So embarrassing.

So I kept on walking Gracie. Then I walked two more dogs. My thumb hurt quite a bit, but that seemed to be the worst of my injuries.

Until I woke the next morning with pain on the side of my chest. I googled “bruised ribs,” and yep that’s what it was. Even if they were cracked, the Internet says the treatment is the same: ice, rest, drugs. Six weeks to heal.

That was almost four weeks ago. I’ve mostly been functional when upright, as long as I don’t overexert myself. Walking is fine. Getting up from a lying position is hard. Sneezing was excruciating, but that has improved. I was able to do my part to separate two fighting dogs (ours).

I did wind up seeking medical help a week and a half ago when I had sharp chest pains and was short of breath. Thought I was having a heart attack, maybe a Vicodin overdose? Nope, just strain in the interstitial cartilage or something. A house call from paramedics and four hours in the ER later, I was disappointed they didn’t see any fractures in my X-rays.

So that’s my deal. I hope to be better and back to walking shelter dogs in a couple of weeks. And though I’d love to see her again, I hope Gracie’s not still there when I go back.

Since my injury, I have neglected not only blog posting, but blog hopping. I’m getting back up on the horse right now with the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog.

“Have you been to the new dog park?” My hairdresser asked me last week.

“There’s a new dog park???”

I consider myself pretty locked in to the dog news around here, so I’m going to assume that I heard this first from my hairdresser because my dog training buddies have better pro-social activities for their dogs than the Wild West of off-leash parks.

We work hard to make our occasional dog park visits positive, even if that means leaving when the party is just getting started. Our visit last week to the Other Dog Park got really exciting when a year-old German shepherd zoomie-galloped into the fray, and Leo chased after him. I thought, Oh, good, Leo can wear himself out with this guy. But when the young dog slowed down, Leo mounted and humped him.

This has become our signal that it’s time to leave. While humping is a perfectly normal thing for a dog to do (Fern Camacho can tell you more), we keep things polite at the park. We used to have a three-strikes policy, but once Leo fixates on a dog, he keeps going back, so now we pack it up after the first mount.

Which is also what we did for our first visit to the Best Dog Park. While it’s farther from our house than the other two dog parks, it’s worth the drive. We’re still in the honeymoon phase, but it’s amazing! The ground is fully covered in bark, and there are some nice logs for people to sit on and dogs to jump over. More importantly, the people there were more attentive to their dogs than the folks tend to be at the Other Dog Park.

Somehow the dogs even seem better. This all might be because it’s new, but we’ll take it!

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Find out how positive reinforcement training helped my dog in my book, Bark and Lunge!

The good people at Dog-E-Glow liked this video so much that they sent us a couple of different styles to try out! We walk our dogs every day after dark, and during those walks, they always wear their Dog-E-Glows. We usually keep them on “steady glow,” but they also have a blinky setting.

I love the purple skull pattern that Mia’s been wearing, but it doesn’t seem as bright as Leo’s green collar. That’s not a problem with her new pink rhinestone necklace. It’s not easy to capture the majesty on film, but I tried:

Leo’s new collar is a black-and-white skull and crossbones, with a red light.

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I have found the secret to Leo’s success. Cheese. If a bike, jogger, or another dog is far enough away, I feed him chunks of string cheese to counter-condition him with a positive association to the scary thing.

All summer, I walked him around the nearby college campus, which wasn’t very crowded off-season, but where we pretty reliably saw a bicycle or two. The fun thing about working the CARE for Reactive Dogs protocol is that my goals and my attitude changed. Instead of dreading bicycles, I sought them out, and would be disappointed not to see one on our walks.

Imagine how different it is for Leo to have the other end of the leash thinking, “Oh good, a bicycle! Time for cheese,” instead of “Oh crap, a bicycle. Cue the barkfest.”

Lately, I’ve been wanting to walk the dogs together. I discovered that I can cut through a community garden to a big empty field that I call the Crime Scene Field, because I feel like an FBI agent on the job with my search and recovery dogs.

To get from our driveway to the community garden, we have to walk a short distance on our fairly busy street. So far, we’ve timed this perfectly not to encounter anybody on our evening walks, but just in case, I’ve been putting Leo’s ThunderCap on him for this part of the walk.

While, yes, it is a little embarrassing to think of passing drivers wondering why I blindfolded my dog, the benefit is huge. Not only does it reduce Leo’s vigilance, but it calms me down, because I’m more relaxed as we pass the three houses between ours and the community garden. Again, imagine the difference for Leo between this and having me on the other end of the leash frantically scanning the sidewalks for potential triggers.

Sadly, this evening walk site will be short-lived, because it won’t be safe after dark. Time to find a new well-lit, low-populated path, or revisit an old one.

Turns out that won’t happen unless I also cut back on the M&Ms and french fries.

When I first started volunteering at the Humane Society of Skagit Valley, I went two or three times a week and walked three dogs about 20 minutes each on a trail that included some steep inclines. As sweaty and dirty as I was when I returned to work afterward, I thought surely I’d drop a ton of weight.

(In my early 30s, I lost 3 pounds just by walking Isis several days a week, with no changes to my diet. Sadly, I am now in my late 30s.)

Realistically, I couldn’t keep up that pace, so I cut back my volunteer hours to once a week. I’ve watched happily as many of the dogs I’ve befriended have found families of their own.

Two of my favorite inmates at the moment are Abe and Dylan, whom I like to cally Dilly, Dilly Bear, or Dillsbury Dough Boy.

Yeah, that’s his own dried slobber on his nose

Abe looks a lot like my old pal Buddy, who recently got his own home, soccer ball included. He’s a lean, but very tall hound-shepherd mix, with a boisterous bark that might intimidate visitors who only see him behind bars. But let him loose in the play yard and he’s a big, smiley goofball. Yesterday, I let him run loose for a few minutes before our walk. I let the dogs drag their leashes in the yard, so I don’t wind up playing keep-away when it’s time to put the leash back on. Abe ran so hard that he tripped over his leash and flipped onto his back like a cartoon character.

Don’t hold it against him, but Abe is a bit of a puller. It’s not his fault; no one taught him any better. I make kissy noises and give him treats when he comes back to me. (A clicker would be impractical; I need both hands on his leash.) On the wooded trail, I let him pull ahead a little, because he is a hound dog and deserves quality sniffing time. Yesterday, while he had his head buried under a bush, I saw a deer ahead on the trail. The deer ran off before Abe saw it.

It didn’t go entirely unnoticed though. Abe sure perked up when we reached the spot where the deer had been. He went bonkers, squealing and sniffing, making snuffling noises against the ground and, sorry to reuse the imagery, looking like a cartoon dog. I worried a little that he might pull me off my feet, but I held onto that leash for dear life as he dragged me up the trail until he lost the scent of the deer.

After returning sweet Abe to his kennel, I visited Dilly, a medium sized brindle pit bull mix. Dilly is the ideal dog for snuggling on the couch. He has this way of leaning up against you, like all he wants in the world is to be touching you. I sat down on the floor of his kennel and he crawled into my lap and I just held him for a few minutes, kissing his head. Honestly, I wouldn’t trade Mia and Leo for anything, but Dilly could teach them a few things about cuddling.

On my walk with him, I paused a few times to crouch down and rub his belly (and kiss his face, I admit it). At one point when I stood back up, he had a sudden burst of energy and sprang ahead. Unprepared, I let the leash slip out of my hand.

(Somehow, I managed to hold onto huge Abe, but let Dilly go? How did that happen?)

I quickly recovered from the heart-lurching fear that I’d just lost a shelter dog, realizing that Dilly would come back to me if I sat down and offered him a lap to sit in. And he did.

At this point, I was feeling pretty fatigued, still recovering from a recent head cold.

Maybe I won’t walk a third dog, I thought. I had planned to walk Clark, whom I like to call Clarkson. Now that Buddy has found a home, Clark, the so-dark-gray-he’s-almost-black pit-lab mix, has been there the longest of my pals. He initially was surrendered by a family with an apparent allergy, then was adopted to a family who brought him back after he got in a fight at the dog park. He’s been pretty anxious since I’ve known him, chewing through at least one collar and two harnesses. The shelter staff says he didn’t do that kind of thing during his first stint in the clink.

I couldn’t let Clark down, especially since shelter staff felt the need to rename him Clyde, so in lieu of a trail walk, I played with him in the yard. I swear, never has a dog been happier to chase a tennis ball. And then… he got even happier when I threw a second ball to him.

Two balls! I get to play with both of these? At first, Clark dropped one ball to pick up the other, but then he realized he could fit both in his mouth. There’s an old boat on a trailer in this play yard, and Clark likes to lie under it and tear the fuzzy skin off tennis balls. Tail wagging, huge smile on his face.

How, I ask you, HOW does this dog not have a yard of his own? I want to give Clark a yard, and a family with kids to play with him, and a bucket full of tennis balls to tear apart. Who cares if he doesn’t play well at the dog park?

I want to give Dilly a couch and a person to lean on.

I want to give Abe a person with patience to teach him to walk nicely on a leash (using force-free methods of course), and yard to race around in without a leash to trip him up.